


Signed and sealed in blood

by msxylda



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, And not just from the tattoos, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Hurt!Steve, I don't want to be right, If it is, Is it wrong to want to see Banner tattoo Steve?, Jarvis is also a good bro, M/M, None of this is compliant with anything, Steve is hurting, Tattoo, there is pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8035987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msxylda/pseuds/msxylda
Summary: Bruce works on an ink that can tattoo Steve. Steve gets tattoos to remind him of the people he loves.Namely Bucky.Then Winter Soldier.There are feels.





	Signed and sealed in blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Livvy1800](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvy1800/gifts), [tracinginthesand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/gifts).



> If I edit this, I'll be stuck reworking that first bit forever. So I'll edit it. Someday. And include some slash. Someday. But that day is not today...
> 
> I'd say sorry, but I'm not actually...

“I could probably even make tattoo ink that would work on you…” Tony proclaimed as he stumbled into the kitchen three days after The Battle of New York. Steve had barely seen the scientist in those three days, being informed by the other man’s disembodied butler that Tony had been on a “science bender” and was improving one of his suits. Or all of his suits. Steve hadn’t been quite clear on that.

He’d been more focused on the voice talking to him from the ceilings, or walls, or where ever. What a future they were living in where there was a disem—

“What?” Steve asked as the other man’s words finally sunk in. It was too late though, Tony was already snoring next to a pile of Lucky Charms that he’d poured out onto the counter. With a sigh, Steve levered himself out of his chair before hoisting Tony up and carrying him to bed. Tony would probably be upset at being treated like a child later, but his butler seemed pleased.

* * *

In the days that passed after the Lucky Charms incident, as Steve had begun referring to it in his head, he tried not to dwell on the boast Tony had most likely forgotten. It was more difficult than he’d thought it would be at the time. 

It shouldn’t have been surprising though, considering he’d been fascinated by tattoos since he’d first seen them decorating the arms of sailors, dock workers, and other rough men. The men he’d always admired. The men he never thought he’d get to be.

He’d remembered trying to covertly study the inked images with envy. Not wanting to give the men the wrong idea about his intentions. It was the solely the artistic skill that went into (some) tattoos that drew his eye. The working of ink on skin, not the skin itself. 

It was a lie he repeated over and over until the day that Bucky came home from a night out with his buddies from the docks with some fresh ink of his own. High on his left arm in a looping, graceful script were the words “til the end of the line.” A physical reminder of the promise the brunet had making since they first met.

Steve had traced the words with his eyes for weeks until he got the courage to run his fingers over the words. They were still slightly raised from the rest of his skin, and it sent a spike of fear tumbling through him until Bucky assured him that they just did that sometimes. “Nothing to worry about, Stevie,” he’d promised, “I ain’t gonna die on you.”

But then he had.

And Steve hadn’t had time to trace those words nearly enough. Not with his eyes, or his hands, or his—

No, that way lay madness.

He’d tried to get the words tattooed on his own arm. In memoriam of his friend, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t for lack of trying. When Peggy had found him trying to get blitzed in a bombed out bar he’d already had the words inked on himself three times. 

Every time they’d faded leaving on the memories of physical pain to match the emotional wound. It had made him laugh, an ugly twisted sound that held no mirth. Couldn’t get drunk, couldn’t get tattooed, and couldn’t live without Bucky.

It was almost something of a relief, though he’d never admit it out loud, when he realized that he’d have to put the plane down. 

Suicide without going to hell. 

Just as the familiar guilt at leaving Peggy was about to kick in, a bottle of ink so dark it had gone past black appeared in front of his eyes. Tracing the bottle to the hand, then the arm, and finally up to the face he found himself looking at Doctor Banner.

They hadn’t spent much time together, he and the Doctor. The other man preferred to spend his time in the lab where Steve had yet to come up with a valid reason to visit, but based on the Doctor’s explanation of the bottle, all that would be changing.

It was ink, obviously, but what wasn’t as obvious was that the Doctor believed this ink would actually … stick. That it would mark his skin, permanently. There was a lot of science talk that Steve only half listened to after that where the Doctor- Bruce- explained exactly how, but Steve was no longer listening. Instead, he was planning out his own tattoos.

His own tattoos.

His own. Tattoos.

* * *

They started with the names. All of the howling commandos were embroidered into his skin with ink, science, and blood. Forever with him in spirit if not in body starting with Bucky right under his heart and down to Peggy (an honorary commando if there ever was one) right above his hip. Next came the symbols for every member of his new team, his Avengers. Starting with the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol for Agent Coulson next to Bucky straight through the arrow for Hawkeye. 

Those alone should have been enough to ground him. 

They weren’t.

He had discovered that while he might not be able to get drunk, he was able to experience something akin to it under the buzz of the tattoo gun. So he went further and further. Getting the outline of Brooklyn tattooed right above Bucky’s name. Right above his heart. His arms became a swirling pattern of colors and symbols that he thought he was picking at random, until he discovered that they all wound together to tell the story of his life. 

The one he thought had ended with Bucky.

Even when he moved to D.C., he would still come back about once a month for Bruce to etch more images into his skin. The Doctor claimed that he couldn’t draw to save his life, but that he was adequate when it came to tracing.

Steve hardly agreed, but it wasn’t worth pushing the other man. Eventually he might, but for now he’d allow Bruce his shield of modesty.

At least until the large piece on his back was done. The mural that would take up the all the bare skin from his right side up to the symbols for his team. It was a masterpiece he’d spent hours sketching on paper so he could get it exactly right, and then tweaked more with Bruce until it was perfect. And the outline and some of the shading had even been completed…

And then…

And then Fury was killed, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and Bucky was…

Bucky was…

* * *

He expected to die, there on the Helicarrier. He’d wanted to die. He didn’t want to live in a world where he’d failed his best friend, his Bucky, so spectacularly. It was like putting the plane down all over again.

But he didn’t die.

Again.

Instead he woke up in the hospital, sometime long after dark, with a very ragged looking Bucky watching over him. He tried to reach for the other man, but couldn’t. There were tubes in his arms and when he tried to pull them out Bucky looked so distressed. He didn’t want Bucky to look distressed. He didn’t ever want to hurt Bucky again. So he lay back down, and when Bucky came and sat with him, he started talking.

About waking up.

About Avenging.

About the tattoos. 

Eventually, and even though he didn’t want to, he fell back asleep. When he woke for a second time, it wasn’t Bucky sitting by his bed, but Sam. His hopes were dashed against the rocks at a bottom of a cliff as he realized that Bucky had never been there. 

Bucky had never been there.

Still, night after night as he slowly recovered he dreamt every night of Bucky. Every. Night. And every night he would explain more and more. The meanings of the tattoos. The ones he’d never even let himself think about before. The ones that screamed out his love for his best friend. About how he’d covered himself in a blanket of Bucky.

Every night he dreamt, and he cried, and he tried to heal.

* * *

The second he was healed enough to be discharged, he raced to New York. Tony had been after him to come to the tower after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and since the move would put him closer to Bruce he felt no need to argue. 

After all, he wasn’t ready to hunt down Bucky yet.

Not until the piece on his back was finished.

It was when he was under the gun, the buzz lulling him into his happy place that he admitted to Tony what he feared. That his best friend was made to kill Howard Stark. Tony took it better than he’d expected. Storming out of the room for a time before coming back in and making highly inappropriate jokes. Bruce tutted at him, but Tony only countered that he used black humor as a coping mechanism.

Steve thought that was kind of racist, but he decided to wait to confront the man until they’d both had a little more time. Until Steve could form words without slurring. Until he could open his eyes more than halfway, and without seeing Bucky when he wasn’t really there.

* * *

“I am sorry about your parents. Howard was a good man…”

“It wasn’t you, Terminator, it was HYDRA”

“But still—“

“No, I mean it.”

“Will you both…”

* * *

“Is he supposed to be like that?”

“It happens to some people. It’s sort of like being drunk. A little like sub-space.”

“Sub what now?”

“Tony…”

“Oh no, I am not explaining kinky sex to the murder robot…”

“Weren’t you just claiming to be the sexpert?”

* * *

“So we’re done. That’s it… tattoo complete.”

“So you can stop looking at my science boyfriend with murder eyes now.”

“I only have murder eyes now.”

“Hey look! He made a joke. He’s a real boy now… Oh wow… I didn’t know your eyes had a more murder setting. Look, it’s okay. It was just a joke.”

“Is he still mostly drunk?”

“…yes?”

“So we could do one more tattoo without him noticing.”

“It’s possible, but I’m not going to.”

“Ain’t asking you too, just asking you to hand me the gun.”

“Are you sure you know how to use it?”

“It’s a gun, I know my way around those.”

“Did you just make another joke? Am I allowed to make a joke now?”

Steve started to come around, the room swimming back into focus, but then the buzz of the needles started again and he felt himself sinking back under. So much like the plane and the helicarrier, but instead of ice or dirty river water, he felt warm. 

Like coming home.

* * *

When he regained himself he wasn’t still in the lab, as he had expected. He was in his bed, in a soft, clean shirt and equally soft and clean sleep pants. Soft and clean, he mused, seemed to be fitting. The entire world seemed softer, cleaner, and- oddly- warmer. At least, his bed seemed warmer. He almost didn’t want to move at all, but his back was stiff and aching. Sticky from the cream that Bruce always slathered all over when a tattooing session was finished. 

It took him longer to realize that something was wrong then he’d like to admit. 

It was that his ass was also sore. And sticky. Not all of it, and not in any place that would warrant serious concern and cause him to doubt his trust in the good Doctor, but a serious portion of his right cheek was … 

He hopped out of bed quicker than he should, teetering a little as he tried to find his feet. Scampering to the bathroom, he tugged down his sleep pants to find.

Well…

The thing was…

“What the fuck?”

“I figured,” a voice said behind him, causing him to jump and whirl. There. Right there. In the doorway to his bathroom. Bucky. 

Steve couldn’t believe it. It could not be real. White blurred the edges of his vision and he felt, for a brief moment, like he had all those years ago in the middle of an attack. When his vision cleared, he realized that Bucky was speaking. The words, though, the words weren’t making any sense. Some noise he made must have given his confusion away, as Bucky rolled his eyes before shoving himself away from the frame and stalking closer.

“I said, Stevie, that If you were going to go and get yourself pain drunk, then you should have to deal with the consequences.” 

The world started to go white again, and Steve sat down hard on the vanity, hissing as he did so. The counter was cold and his ass still fucking hurt. Probably because of _the tattoo on it._

“You tattooed me?” He asked, as he started to piece things together. Snippets of conversation from last night and the tattoo on his ass. He looked up and found Bucky smirking at him. Smirking! “You jerk!”

“Yeah, but I’m your jerk, punk.”

And with that, Bucky finally reached for him- using his flesh arm- to pull him into a monster of a hug. One Steve heartily returned, coaxing the brunet into wrapping the metal arm around him as well. They stayed that way, wrapped in each other as they talked and they cried. They were both still broken, still fragments of what they were, but they were together.

They were together…

And together, they could finally become whole again…

Just like the tattoo on his ass. The one that featured half his shield that bleed into Bucky’s red star and the metal of his arm… The same one that Steve, eventually, tattooed into his friend. 

Two sides of the same coin. Together. Til the end of the line.


End file.
